


Not Alexander, Nor Bucephalus

by inlovewithnight



Category: Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 07:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thisby has a past, and a future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Alexander, Nor Bucephalus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/gifts).



Puck stands in the doorway and breathes in the smell of the storm. The wind is lashing the rain against the north side of the house and the barn, sturdy rock walls bearing the brunt of it as they have for a hundred years. Sean won't like her going out in the storm, not now that she's in her eighth month and as big as a horse herself, but Sean is off on the mainland with George Holly, their hired man is in town, and someone has to do the evening feeding. Puck is the only someone available, unless the cats are going to step up to the job.

The cats are hiding from the rain and she hasn't seen one in hours. All on her, then.

She puts the hood up on her poncho to sheild her face as best she can, wraps one arm around her bulging belly, and starts out into the storm. The rain is cold against her face and tastes faintly of salt, to her mind; faintly of the sea. Or perhaps the salt is lingering on her lips, and that's why she tastes it. There's always salt in the air over Thisby. Part of what makes it home.

The baby kicks steadily at her ribs while she makes her way down the mud-slick path to the barn. Demanding little thing. Puck is sure that it will be born shouting for boots and a saddle. Sean rolls his eyes when she says that, but smiles, before saying he doesn't care what it asks for as long as it it's healthy and strong and has the island woven into every muscle and bone. He wants an island child who won't long to get away. Puck wishes she could make him a promise, but their baby will be who it will be, and there's no point trying to change that. Especially not now.

"Love the wind and the rain and the sea, baby," she mutters as she struggles to unlatch the barn door. The latch is cold and slick with rain, and her fingers are stiff and swollen. "Love Sean, and love me. We already love you so much."

Sean, especially. He falls asleep at night with his hand over her belly, fingers spread wide, palm solid against the heat of her. They've never bothered to marry, much to the dismay of Father Mooneyham and the women in town. It's never been the sort of thing that bothers them. And Puck likes it, a bit--likes knowing that the eyes on her when she walks through town are watching her because she makes her own decisions, and tosses their judgement back in their faces. She did it when she rode in the Races, and she's doing it now, and they can all take a walk down to the water's edge if they don't like it.

She's still here. She'll always be here.

She wrestles the door open and pulls it closed behind her, stopping for a moment in the dim warmth of the barn. The horses whuffle softly at her, except for Corr, who screams his high wail of hunger. Puck ignores him and walks directly to Dove's stall, looking in over the door. "Poor thing," she sighs, as Dove grunts and struggles to her feet. "You're as uncomfortable as I am."

Dove's belly is heavy with ten months' worth of foal, a foal that can't be giving her much rest, given that half its blood is running hot with _capaill uisce_ magic. Corr's foal, strong and wild. Corr's foal bred on Sean's longing for a horse of power and beauty that won't pine away for the sea. No one has successfully crossed a horse and one of the _uisce_ in generations, and yet here Dove is, nuzzling Puck's palm and shifting her weight on her hooves to balance the weight of her belly.

"You're one of a kind, girl," Puck tells her, ruffling Dove's mane. "And we're both counting the days, I think." Dove huffs in agreement and Puck kisses her forehead before she walks to the feed room and starts measuring out meals for Dove, Corr, and the three mares Sean has been training for Holly.

After she's distributed the grain and hay, she looks out at the storm for a moment. The wind has picked up, the rain cutting through the air more viciously. Compared to the warmth and sweet smell of the barn, the idea of walking through that to get back to the house seems like madness. And once she reached the house, she would still be alone. Sean won't be home for another two days.

Sometimes she thinks it's strange, how much she misses him when he's away. They've never made each other any promises, after all. Neither of them is sworn to the other. They're friends. Partners. There's no reason to dread the idea of sleeping in the bed without him.

The baby kicks at her again, and she sighs. Maybe they have made each other promises, after all.

She walks back to Dove's stall and lets herself inside, latching the door behind her. Dove flicks her ears back and forth but doesn't lift her head from her dinner. "Good girl," Puck says, carefully lowering herself to the floor in the far corner of the stall. Dove is a tidy thing, and keeps her messes in the opposite corner. The shavings where Puck sits are clean and dry in a wide enough patch that she can stretch out her legs and lean against the wall for support. 

She closes her eyes and listens to the soft sounds of the horses moving in their stalls, eating and just rustling about the way they do. It's warm and safe here, tucked away with her oldest friend, her dearest friend except, maybe, for Sean. It's easy for her to drift off to sleep.

**

Bretta stood on the high cliff overlooking the sea, holding the hood of her cloak in place against the wind. The rain lashed against her, soaking through her trousers, but the oiled wool of the cloak held it back from her face and chest. Not that she would likely notice if it hadn't. All of her attention was fixed on the waves below.

The monsters were playing. 

She squinted against the rain and watched, trying to spot the exact moment one rises up from the waves. It was impossible from this distance, but she tried anyway, tracking one burst of foam after another for the pattern that would turn into slender legs, a broad chest, delicate ears.

Completely impossible. She would have to be on the beach to manage it, and in this weather, standing on the beach would be a death sentence. The monsters would be on her before she could scream, much less run. She knew the Law as well as anyone in the village, any of the ragged little group of settlers that had come to Thisby from the mainland. The beaches were the monsters' territory. The newcome humans would claim the interior of the island instead. More than fair.

And yet Bretta could not stop watching.

The wind howled around her ears and she stepped closer to the edge of the cliff, watching the water surge against the rocks. A horse clawed its way up out of the wave and stood atop the highest rock, throwing its head high to scream into the wind. Bretta heard it like a cry of her name.

She knew that this was how the monsters caught their prey, that it was a trap, and yet she still couldn't help but hear it as an invitation.

**

Puck stirs awake, blinking against the light of the barn lanterns. The wind is still screaming past, and she can hear the rain beating against the roof. Dove is dozing on her feet, chin resting on the edge of her manger. 

The horses are quiet, not frantic as they would be if they had just heard the raw scream of a _capaill uisce_ climbing out of the waves. It was only a dream. A dream of the island long ago, and another girl who watched the water horses.

Puck's eyelids droop and she lets herself slip back into sleep, the girl's name on the tip of her tongue.

**

Spring, and the new-built village was swarmed by rats and rabbits. The island hosted a native population, presumably held in check by birds and the monsters, but the arrival of humans had thrown the balance off and until it found itself again: a constant nuisance.

Bretta carried the bodies of three rats and a rabbit by tails and ears out toward the point on the bluffs where she dumped the bodies when it was her turn to do the killing. Some of the others burned them, and some buried them in pits outside the village wall, but she didn't see any reason to deprive the birds of their feeding. Or the monsters, for that matter, though saying that aloud would have earned her a swift slap in the face. Bretta was quite alone in being willing to think about the monsters if she didn't have to.

She stood on the bluff and looked out at the sea; choppy waves, crashing all the way to the base of the bluffs now at high tide, but a clear sky, and no smell of a storm on the wind. A beautiful day, one that reminded her why they had all come to Thisby in the first place.

She tossed the little corpses down and stepped to the edge, drawing in a deep breath and spreading her arms to feel the wind off the sea. They could live freely here, have a plot of land apiece to build on, raise crops and animals, answer to no one but themselves, and--

She heard the hoofbeats before she smelled the monster. It ought to have been too late. She should have died there, her last breath smelling like rotting meat and seaweed. 

Instead, when she turned to look, the beast was standing over the rats and rabbit she had left on the ground. It stared at her, eyes wide and ears pricked up just like the mortal horse whose shape it stole, mane tossing in the wind. It didn't attack.

They stared at each other, Bretta breathless with terror, the monster as still and silent as stone.

After a moment it lowered its head and began to eat. Bretta managed to draw a ragged breath and took a step away, moving laterally along the cliff's edge back toward the village.

The beast's head snapped up and it screamed, blood and viscera dripping from its lips. Bretta froze again, fists clenching at her sides, the sound cutting through her like the blade-sharp teeth she could see in the monster's mouth.

It grabbed the rabbit from the ground and raced away, kicking its heels in the air several times as it crossed the bluff and darted down a ravine toward the water. Bretta watched, stunned, as it galloped across the beach, dove into the waves, and dissolved into water, blood, and foam.

The rats still lay on the ground, not more than three paces away. The monster had been close enough to touch.

**

The next time she took the bodies of rodents up to the bluffs, the monster was there again. And the time after that. The fourth time, Bretta couldn't pretend it was anything other than the creature specifically, deliberately coming to find her. And she was _feeding_ it, reinforcing that it ought to keep coming back, over and over again. It would probably follow her back to the village next, looking for another meal, and then she would be responsible for whatever damage it did.

And yet she gathered up dead rats and rabbits a fifth time, and walked to the bluffs again. She was a fool and a coward and possibly a danger to her people, but she wanted to see the beast again.

It was so beautiful. Not it; _she_. Bretta had watched enough of the monsters at play in the waves to know that they mimicked the shape of horses precisely, and the one that met her on the bluffs was a mare. A long-legged, slender bay, with a thick mane and tail and delicately pointed ears. Beautiful and deadly as a lightning strike, and so Bretta had named her _Dealan_ in the privacy of her mind.

The fifth time she walked up to the bluffs, Dealan was waiting, with a corpse of her own at her feet. 

At first, to Bretta's horror, she thought the pale lump of flesh was a human limb, but a second look made clear that it was a shark. Not a small one, either, but as long as a man's leg and silvery-pale as dead human skin, explaining her confusion. Its teeth still showed jagged and sharp in its gaping mouth, but the bloody gouges in its sides made it clear that Dealan had won their battle easily. Bretta didn't see any marks on the monster's hide at all.

Dealan whinnied when she saw Bretta, high and thin and screaming in the way of her kind. She ducked her head and nosed at the shark, pushing it over the grass toward Bretta, who stood frozen with the rats in her arms. The shark's corpse rolled slowly, clumsily, with all the heaviness of death. Dealan tossed her head and pranced in place, whinnying again.

It was a gift, Bretta realized slowly. She had brought gifts to the bluffs that sated the monster's hunger, and now Dealan was returning the favor. It was a bizarre parody of courtship.

She tossed the rats down and took a step back, away from all of the corpses and toward the edge of the cliffs. Dealan screamed again, more harshly, and nosed the shark toward her, this time with force that sent it bouncing over the grass like a grotesque toy.

This was a not a gift that Bretta would be allowed to refuse.

She took the shark awkwardly in her arms and nodded to Dealan. "Thank you." Perhaps it could be eaten, or the hide made into gloves. Since the village's fishermen were only barely beginning to venture into the calmest waters, they certainly weren't going to bring in a shark of this size any time soon.

The mare snatched a rat from the ground and galloped off, taking with her the smell of death and salt air. Bretta began her walk back to the village and caught herself wondering, in her heart of hearts, if it was a parody of a courtship at all, or the true thing. And how much she hoped for the latter--for anything that wild and free, that able to run in the air and dance on the waves to love _her_ , and want to keep her close.

**

The next time Bretta walked to the cliffs, she wore sharkskin gloves and carried both two dead rats and a length of cord with holly twisted into it at intervals, with knots on either side. She had an iron nail in her pocket and an iron cross around her neck. If there was any way to bring more protection to bear against Dealan's hunting instincts, she couldn't think of it.

Dealan was waiting on the bluff when Bretta approached, another fish at her feet and her tail swishing in the breeze. She called out as Bretta climbed up the path--a sound less shrill than usual, and definitely welcoming.

"Hello, darling," Bretta whispered, placing the rats on the ground and stepping back. "Have you missed me?"

Dealan's nose wrinkled and she took a step to the side, approaching the rats from as far from Bretta as she could get. She pranced in place, shaking her head, and Bretta knew it was the iron and the holly putting her off. "I'm sorry," she said, walking a similar arc away from Dealan as she went to get the fish and put it in her bag. "I want to run with you, darling, but I don't want to die."

Dealan swished her tail again and ripped chunks of flesh from the rats. Killing was in her nature, Bretta thought, they had no disagreement on that. She took a deep breath and readied the cord, stepping toward Dealan briskly while at the same time bringing it up and tossing it toward the horse.

The loop in the cord settled around Dealan's neck and the mare's head came up immediately. She shuddered all over and reared, striking out at the air and testing the strength of Bretta's arms. The knots and the holly held true, though, and after a moment the mare ducked her head, trembling and, just for an instant, submitting to Bretta's will.

It was long enough for Bretta to boost herself up onto the mare's back and twist knots into her mane with iron-touched fingers. "Beautiful," she whispered, "oh, my beautiful darling, let us run."

**

They ran on the beach every morning for a turn of the moon. Bretta brought Dealan meat every morning, and after the first week Dealan bowed her head for the holly bridle without fighting. 

After the second week, Bretta stopped carrying iron, and relied only on the holly and the knots in Dealan's mane to keep her true. And true she was; true _they_ were, together. Air and flesh and sea. They understood each other.

After the full turn of the moon, the fishermen saw them silhouetted on the bluffs, against the morning light. When Bretta returend to the village, they beat her, tied her hands, and tossed her in the headman's shed.

**

Bretta stood at the wall in the headman's shed, looking out toward the bluffs, though she couldn't see anything through the wall, and even if she could, there were the the cabins and barns between them. She imagined she could hear Dealan, though, calling her loneliness and anger to the skies.

The men had beaten her many more times, for consorting with the monsters, for calling them in. She could hear them, though, talking outside, arguing about if it was possible to take her holly and her nails and the stories she knew as well as them and to bind the monsters to their will. Break them. Of course. Why run with the wind when you could break its will? Why indeed?

She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the wall. _Dealan_ , she thought. _My love, my lightning. My darling who chose me. My girl who brought me the wild air and the sea. Never let them break you. Never bend your head to another who does not also bow to you. I would bow to you, my darling, if only I saw you again. I would kneel to you, and never forget to bless you for the smallest taste of your freedom and your magic. I would--_

The wind screamed around the shed.

When Bretta opened her eyes, the wall was gone.

**

Puck wakes abruptly, with a shock. The baby kicks, but that isn't what broke her dream. 

It was the salt-ice slap of the sea against her face as Dealan took her under the waves.

Puck rises to her feet carefully, bracing herself on the wall. Dove is still dozing, her chin tucked between her knees, and Puck lets her hand just brush over the mare's mane, not enough to wake her. She can hear, faintly, an echo of a dream itself, the foal singing in its sleep inside the warm swell of Dove's belly. It will be born with the sea in its eyes and ripples of foam in its hair, Puck knows. Just as she knows that her own baby will have wide eyes, and a crooked smile, and long for nothing but to run on the tops of the bluffs and watch the uisce rise and fall in the waves, as long as the view is a-horseback.

Puck walks down the center aisle of the barn carefully, one arm around her belly, until she reaches Corr's stall. The stallion eyes her and tosses his head, proud and stern. He will never give her so much as a second glance that doesn't come with bared teeth and a howl. 

She has seen him bow his head to Sean, though. And Sean bow back again.

"It's as simple as that?" she asks him. "We have to fight each other and die because no one ever asked you creatures to play nicely?"

Corr bares his teeth and stomps his hooves. Puck takes a step back and shakes her head.

It is that simple, and it's not, woven together like the girl's holly and cord. Maybe the capaill uisce only submit exactly as they choose to, and don't give a good goddamn about if humans can understand their motivations for it.

She thinks about her baby singing wild sea-songs in Dove's foal's ear as they race along the beach. Maybe no one ever needs to understand. Those who need to know, know, and maybe that's enough.


End file.
